Dynamic Digest: Week of 5/30

Dynamic Digest: Week of 5/30

Welcome to the Dynamic Digest, a weekly recap of the latest news happening in our industry. Want the pulse of what’s going on in enterprise software and analytics, performance management, cloud computing, data, and other like topics? We got you covered! This week in the world of technology, Salesf...

Welcome to the Dynamic Digest, a weekly recap of the latest news happening in our industry. Want the pulse of what’s going on in enterprise software and analytics, performance management, cloud computing, data, and other like topics? We got you covered!

This week in the world of technology, Salesforce agreed to acquire a digital commerce platform, Yahoo disclosed 3 National Security Letters it received, social media giants signed a hate speech agreement, and IBM and Cisco partnered on Internet of Things project.

Watch out world of digital commerce, Salesforce is coming for you! In an effort to expand into the multi-billion-dollar digital commerce space, Salesforce has agreed to acquire Demandware, a cloud-based e-commerce platform for retailers, for $2.8 million. Demandware, founded in 2004 and headquartered in Burlington, MA, offers e-commerce management and point-of-sale solutions as well as consultant and customer success management services. The acquisition will add another cloud service to Salesforce’s product line, called the Commerce Cloud. After the two companies integrate their services, current Salesforce customers will be able to access the cloud commerce platform from within their Salesforce suite and existing Demandware customers will be able to leverage Salesforce’s extensive suite of customer success solutions.

Key takeaway: Salesforce takes a strong leap into the e-commerce space with a market-leading solution that already has large enterprise customers. Existing customers of Demandware can also expect to see an improved cloud experience along with access to Salesforce’s comprehensive suite of customer success solutions. With Demandware’s expertise in digital commerce combined with the robust cloud service of Salesforce, the Salesforce Commerce Cloud will likely deeply penetrate the multi-billion dollar industry in a short period of time.

It’s probably no surprise that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) oftentimes turns to tech companies for help whenever they need internet user data of their persons of interest. However, it wasn’t until recently that the general public has confirmation of such demands and insights into the manner in which it’s done. Yahoo has publicly shared three National Security Letters (NSL) it received from the FBI, making it the first time a tech company has released details on such requests from the government. What stopped tech companies from sharing such information before? NSLs were previously required to be kept confidential until the recent passing of the USA Freedom Act. This act required the FBI to do periodic reassessments on whether the non-disclosure component of NSLs is still necessary. With the recent reassessment, the non-disclosure component has been lifted, allowing Yahoo to release redacted versions of the letters. According to the NSLs Yahoo released, the FBI required the tech company to provide information such as account names and addresses, the length of service for each account, and any bank accounts or IP addresses associated with the user.

Key takeaway: According to Chris Madsen, Yahoo’s head of global law enforcement, security, and safety, Yahoo released the NSLs in order to provide some level of transparency into how the government uses its legal authorities to access user data. This will hopefully bring more sensitivity to NSLs and discourage the FBI from exploiting their authority.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Microsoft joined forces with the European Commission in the fight against online hate speech in Europe. The four tech giants have signed a code of conduct, which states that they will investigate and take action on illegal hate speech on their respective platforms within 24 hours of the content being reported. Although this appears to be for the good of the world, European online rights groups, such as European Digital Rights and Access Now, reacted with outrage. These groups felt that they were deliberately left out of the conversations around the code of the conduct and that the agreement fails to preserve free speech rights. Whether this is a move in the right direction or not, each of the four tech companies will be updating their terms of services and community guidelines to reflect their new policies against online hate speech.

Key takeaway: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Microsoft have good intentions by signing this code of conduct, but how far can online platforms take matters into their own hands until it becomes a violation of free speech rights? This along with the subjectivity of what is considered hate speech, it would probably be wise for these companies to include online rights groups into discussions before making policy changes around digital hate speech.